If as Walter Benjamin claimed "it is the function of artistic formto make historical content into a philosophical truth" then it is the function of criticism to recover & to complete that truth Never has this been more necessary or more difficult than with respect to contemporary art Contemporary art is a point of condensation of a vast array of social & historical forces economic & political forms & technologies of image production Contemporary art expresses this condition Osborne maintains through its distinctively postconceptual form These essays-extending the scope & arguments of Osborne's Anywhere or Not at All Philosophy of Contemporary Art-move from philosophical consideration of the changing temporal conditions of capitalist modernity via problems of formalism the politics of art & the changing shape of art institutions to interpretation & analysis of particular works by Akram Zataari Xavier Le Roy & Ilya Kabakov & the postconceptual situation of a crisis-ridden New Music